


The Wolf With the Red Roses

by kattastic99



Category: jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom, youtube - Fandom
Genre: A tedious war between friends, Is it all a dream? Of course! That doesn't make it less real, It's a fun time if you're not Jack, M/M, Or less dangerous, Overly elaborate Labyrinth AU, Whimsical logic, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28315890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattastic99/pseuds/kattastic99
Summary: Jack dreamed about a man, dressed in black with a red rose in his breast pocket. He dreamed about a wolf, grinning through the void and calling for him. Jack dreamed about a place he could barely comprehend, a world made for him and him alone. He dreamed, and then he woke, but the dream did not leave him.And now it has found him.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Sean McLoughlin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	The Wolf With the Red Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GalaxyGhosty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyGhosty/gifts).



> This was a Christmas gift for my very dear friend and adopted sister, my sweet Ghosty, and it took me, uh. A While. Readers of my ongoing series might get a shock from the sudden whiplash in content but this was important. It's the movie Labyrinth, but gay, and about Youtubers.

“Hey, thanks again,” Ryan said with what Jack was sure was supposed to be a comforting smile but really came off as more of a stressful grimace. “I know it’s super short notice, I really appreciate it-” but here Jack cut him off with a wave of his hand and a much more relaxed smile of his own. 

“It’s nothin’ man,” he said with a cheerfulness that was only just barely forced. “Look, it’s not like I had much planned, and this is an emergency. You’re my friend, man,” he said, “house-sitting for a single night is nothing big.”

Ryan didn’t look the slightest bit mollified, though, and this was already exhausting. “I know, I know,” he said while looking anywhere but at Jack’s face, “but it’s just- I feel silly,” he admitted, “I know nothing is likely to happen, but with my security system being fixed tomorrow, and the remodel being finished like,  _ yesterday, _ and now my MOM needs me to drive out to her place asap, I just. It’ll be such a load off, knowing you’ll be here all night. I’m  _ sorry, _ ” and now Jack’s patience was wearing thinner than ever but what the hell can you do in this situation? 

“Dude, it’s  _ fine, _ ” Jack said firmly. “I’ve spent the night here plenty of times before, all you’re asking me to do is just stay in the house until tomorrow. That’s nothing!” It wasn’t actually  _ nothing, _ of course, Jack had been busy with his latest obsession slash project and being stuck here meant he couldn’t work on it, but in the grand scheme of things ‘nothing’ was closer to the truth than ‘something.’ 

At least Ryan finally looked less anxious about it. “Still, though….. Thank you. I mean it!” Ryan added when Jack tried to wave him off again. “You’re a good friend, Jack. I’ll be back as soon as I can tomorrow morning, alright?” It was only then that Jack finally got a glimpse at just how  _ tired _ Ryan was; the bags under his eyes were bordering on bruises, and Jack was pretty sure that the worried crease in his brow was close to becoming permanent. 

“It’s fine, Ryan,” Jack said much more softly than before. “Now get going, you’re in a bit of a hurry. I’ll hold your fort, and you’ll go help yer ma, and then everything will be alright. Okay?” He didn’t know if it was his words, his body language, or the tone of his voice, but something finally calmed Ryan down enough for the hunch in his shoulders to soften. 

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” Ryan said with a much more genuine smile than before. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jack,” were his final words before he finally turned and walked out of the doorway the two of them had been hovering in for what felt like ages. Jack had the common courtesy to wait until he’d closed and locked the door and he heard Ryan’s car pull out of the driveway before he finally sighed and let his irritation show. 

“Love him to pieces, but this was the  _ worst _ possible time for this,” he grumbled as he headed into the living room. Jack couldn’t really be mad, per-se, since Ryan had zero control over this situation and unlike Jack had legitimate reasons to be very upset- but it didn’t magically make the situation not be irritating to deal with for him. 

As he let himself fall ass first onto Ryan’s couch, Jack’s thoughts drifted to the same place they’d been drifting for the past two and a half weeks; the dream he’d had, close to a month ago now, that had burned itself into his mind with its sheer vividity and now refused to leave. It had been so vivid, so  _ real _ ! Not a single moment of it had faded and gone fuzzy like dreams always do. He remembered how it had started, with an empty black void until a man had appeared. He’d been dressed sharply, his skin a shade of grey that evoked the imagery of stone or ancient photos; his suit had been an almost shining black, his hair somehow darker than the void around them both, but there had been a single spot of color- a rose, in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. That rose had been  _ so red, _ at once the color of blood and strawberries and sunset and fire, like passion personified. 

Jack could remember every word the man had spoken, and he could remember his responses as well. He’d asked Jack if he would belong to him, and Jack had asked if the man would belong to him in turn. Once they’d both agreed, he had been pulled into a world of colors and shapes the likes of which he’d never seen before. 

The ticking of Ryan’s clock was going to drive him insane. Jack all but leapt from the couch and grabbed the TV remote off the coffee table, and spent a good three minutes angrily flipping through channels until he turned it off again. He couldn’t focus on anything, all he wanted to do was work on his book. He’d been using that dream to try and write a story, it was the only way he could think of to get it out of his head. But now he was stuck here, trapped by social contract and also because he loved his friends and liked to help them.

“I’m gonna lose my fookin’ mind,” Jack mumbled as he paced around the living room. As his eyes darted every which way, he saw a mirror on the wall under the stairs; it was taller than he was, stretching from the floor to easily a foot above Jack’s head, but it was really only wide enough for a single person to see their reflection in it at once. If he couldn’t write, at least he could daydream. Usually, when he thought about that unbearable dream, he daydreamed about the world he’d been taken to. With the mirror in front of him, though, Jack figured he should finally pay more attention to the beginning. After all, that was by far the most vivid part.

Jack locked eyes with himself in the mirror as he approached it, waiting until he was standing a mere foot away to begin. Even now, weeks after he’d had it, the voice he had heard in his dream and the words it had spoken were crystal clear in his mind, the low and sultry timbre thrumming through his soul. 

“On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?” The man’s face had been smiling, seductive, but while his voice was sultry that first line had been half-pleading. 

“Will he offer me his mouth?” Jack asked into the empty and quiet house, his reflection showing him how vulnerable he looked as he said it, in the exact same way he had in his dream. 

“Yes,” the man had said, and he had sounded….. Not worried, not afraid, but almost on the edge of nervous. At once with finality and as a question. 

“Will he offer me his teeth?” Jack asked. His voice was shaky, tired, although in reality he was practically vibrating with energy. Even in the dream, he had not felt cornered, simply…. Alone.

“Yes,” the man had said with an edge of excitement and eagerness in the quiet hiss of his voice.

“Will he offer me his jaws?” Jack was getting excited too, but in a much different way. Relief, more than anticipation. 

“Yes,” the man had whispered excitedly. His face had lost its smile but he was not frowning, no, he looked so eager, so full of anticipation, like a dog sitting still but his tail was wagging. 

“Will he offer me his hunger?” Jack took a step closer to the mirror, and his reflection matched him moment by moment. His hands were at his chest, not clasped together but close to it. 

“Yes,” the stranger had said, and he too had taken a step closer to him in the dream. 

“Again,” Jack said with a dry mouth, “will he offer me his hunger?” 

“Yes!” And this time it was not a hushed and excited whisper but an exclamation, loud and final and on the cusp of joy.

“And will he starve, without me?” Jack looked away, eyes on the carpet and posture almost timid.

“Yes!” cried the man in his dream, louder than before as if offended Jack had even had to ask.

“And does he love me?” Alone in the empty house, Jack’s voice was almost drowned out by the silence, yet it rang loud all the same. Now his hands were clasped together at his chest, as if in an attempt to try and guard the heart he had just opened. 

“Yes,” the man had whispered again, a love lighting his eyes that Jack knew was there in the dream but had not seen, as his gaze had been so deeply focused on that bloody, fiery rose. The man had stepped closer again, a hand lifted and hanging in the void between them, refusing to touch him but wanting to all the same. 

“Yes,” Jack had answered quietly, did answer quietly. 

“On a hot, summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?” The question asked once more, so soft and vulnerable. 

“Yes,” Jack said as he turned around, his back facing the mirror and stepping away from it. The last line was not his, and he didn’t want to watch his reflection fail to deliver it. 

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” said the man from his dreams.  _ Behind him. _

Jack whipped around with adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heart in his fucking throat because he’d **heard that** -

Standing there in Ryan’s house, blocking Jack’s view of the mirror, was the man from his dream. It was not a trick of the light, not a hallucination, he was  _ standing there _ and he had the same expression on his face as he’d had in the dream; a smirk you could call slimy, but with none of the bite to it that you’d expect. His black suit stood out more in Ryan’s mostly beige and white house, and the rose tucked into the breast pocket of his suit jacket was somehow just as red as before. 

“Come to me, my darling,” he said. His smirk sharpened into a smile, and Jack knew innately that the wolf was baring his fangs. 

“What the FUCK?!” Jack stepped backwards so fast he almost fell and caught himself on the back of the couch. “What, how- the FOOK?!” Then the words processed, and Jack blinked. “W- I’m fookin’ house sitting! I can’t-  _ WHAT?!” _ He was all but screaming now, and the stranger just kept smiling.

Jack pushed off the couch and turned for the landline in the kitchen, but as he turned the world blurred. Like oil paints smearing against a window, reality shifted around him and when next existence was solid around him Jack was no longer in Ryan’s house. He whipped around again, eyes flitting every which way, and he knew where he was. The sky above him was to the color purple as the real sky was to the color blue, although no sun or moon was visible. Behind him was a rocky valley, as he appeared to be standing on a dusty hill, and as he looked in front of him once more he saw that his stranger’s suit had changed.

His skin was still grey, his smile still sharp, but his suit was the color of bleached bone where once it had been the inky black of night. Most jarring of all, however, was the rose: The rose was no longer tucked into a pocket but seemed to actually be growing through it, out of the man’s chest. The bud was blooming wide, its stem curling up and showing Jack the barest hint of thorns. Jack looked up, his gaze drawn to the man’s eyes like iron drawn to a magnet and he realized something; in the dream, the man’s eyes had been black. Here, though, they were different- still solid colors, no irises or pupils, but the left eye was a golden yellow and the right was a cold silver. 

No wonder, then, that the sky held no sun or moon, for they were here; looking Jack in the face above a smile that could cut through steel. 

“Is this not what you wanted?” Jack’s stranger asked, his teeth almost shining with the force of his oily grin. “I did not mishear you, my darling,” he said with a rumbling hum, “you  _ said yes.” _

To say this was a lot to process would be insulting more than anything, and Jack was barely holding back a combination panic attack and existential crisis. “That- that wasn’t-” Jack stammered. It was not panic that made his words catch in his throat, but the emotion that ruined him so deeply was not one he dared to name. Jack scowled. “I didn’t mean it! I was just- It was, it was just a dream, how could I have POSSIBLY expected this?!” He threw his hands back, gesturing at their surroundings. “This is fooking CRAZY! You can’t just, just pull me into some kinda  _ alien hellscape _ and expect me to be fine with it! Take me back,  _ now, _ ” Jack demanded. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are-”

The stranger was inches away from him suddenly, and the words died inside of Jack’s throat. A stony grey hand lifted up, strong fingers curling up to meet the bottom of Jack’s chin. Jack tilted his head where those fingers guided without thinking, his body moving by instinct as his head was raised so his eyes were pulled into the shining stars of his stranger’s gaze. His face was inches away from Jack’s as he spoke, his lips so soft in appearance but his voice so firm. “You know my name full well, darling,” he said as he leaned impossibly closer. Jack only had to twitch his lips and their mouths would be touching. Then the stranger leaned to the side, his lips practically touching the shell of Jack’s left ear as he whispered into it. “So be a dear, and  _ give it to me.” _

Jack’s mouth parted without a thought. “Dark,” he said, and he had known it the whole time but he couldn’t bear to think it. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did, the same way he had known Dark’s eyes were full of love even though he hadn’t seen them. 

Just like that, the hand cupping his chin and the mouth next to his ear were both gone, and Dark was standing a foot away from him once again with his hands clasped so prim and proper behind his back. “I have to go back,” Jack said quietly, defeated. 

Dark just smiled again. “My darling,” he said as he tilted his head to the side, “you and I had an agreement. I am the wolf with the red roses, and I gave them to you. And you said yes.” Dark raised a brow, and a hand, palm outstretched and raised towards the sky. “If you want to go back, then you must return them. It is only fair, when breaking a trade, to return the items that were traded.”

Jack scowled again, the fight that had drained from him returning in a fiery resurgence. “I don’t fookin’ have em! How the hell am I supposed to return them?!” 

Dark shook his head. “No, they belong to you. They simply reside in the home I have made for us. Journey there, find them, and return them to me.” Dark blinked, and something changed. His eyes were the black void he’d seen in his dream, and Jack craned his head up to see-

The moon hung high in the sky, but the purple sky was tinted with soft blues and greens towards the horizon where the sun was just starting to rise. “The sun will rise,” Dark said as Jack did nothing but stare, stare at what was once a rocky valley and now cradled a sprawling labyrinth of madness; stone and glass, crystals and wood, lakes and forests and hills and valleys and even warped nightmarish towns, they were all sprawled together and connected into a maze the likes of which Jack could have  _ never _ dreamed. And there, at its very heart, was an obsidian palace with a ruby tower at its crown. “And then, my darling, it will set. When it rises once again, it will swallow the moon which will hang anchored in place, and when it does….”

When he turned back around, Jack found that Dark was much closer once again, but he did not reach for him this time. “When it does, my darling Jack,” Dark said with a grin, “the negotiation period for our little trade will be up, and you? Will never leave again.”

Dark’s grin widened, his eyes darkening further until his entire body was shrouded in the void like an oil slick had poured from his sockets. Only his smile remained. “You’ll see me soon, darling.” Then that grin was swallowed too, and the dark that was shaped like the man of Jack’s very dreams faded away, and left him alone.

“Fuck.” Jack just stood there for a few minutes, too shell shocked to really do anything for a bit. It ended up being the sky’s colors shifting further into greens that made him finally move and head down the hill to what he hoped would be a door to the maze. He had no choice but to move forwards. 

The hill was a bit scraggly and difficult to slide down, but Jack made do in pretty good time. It was also far taller than he’d thought it was, which of course meant that the labyrinth was  _ significantly _ larger than he’d thought as well. While on top with Dark he’d been able to see over the walls, could see the palace and much of the areas of the maze itself, but when he finally stumbled onto solid, dusty ground and looked up at the border wall of the labyrinth, he couldn’t even see the palace’s ruby tower over the wall. 

What he could see, however, was the entrance to the maze a little ways further down from where he’d landed; it was a massive set of doors, from what he could see, and he had no idea how he was going to open the damn things since the wall was close to three stories tall and those doors damn near reached up to the top. 

It took five minutes of walking for Jack to finally reach the things, and once he did all he could do was stare up at them; they were  _ massive, _ and the handles alone were as tall as he was and so high up that he couldn’t even hope to reach them. Maybe if he had a ladder? Jack even tried jumping for it, but his fingers were still at least six inches shy of brushing against the bottom of one of the handles. God, was this even a pull door? 

After about twenty minutes of scrabbling at the doors and even throwing himself against them, Jack was forced to concede defeat and look for another way in. Somehow. “Fook, if I can’t even get  _ into _ the damned thing, how the hell am I gonna make it to the center?!” As he walked down the way, following the wall, Jack very pointedly didn’t kick any small pebbles he found in the dust and dirt like some dejected and angsty teenager. Even though he really, really wanted to. 

Since he was staring at the ground, he noticed the flowers and bushes growing against the wall of the labyrinth pretty quickly. Since he was staring at the ground, though, he didn’t notice the guy who was tending to them until he almost ran into him, only seeing the dude’s shoes moments before he walked right into him. 

“Ah, shit, sorry!” Jack sputtered as he looked up. And then he stopped short, because the guy was looking at him awful strangely; a circular white mask covered the majority of his face except for his mouth, but the crude dots for eyes and a line for a mouth were still moving, emoting, looking at him with a quirked brow that popped into being as a single line only when he raised it. Aside from that, the guy’s clothes looked…. Normal enough, Jack supposed, if a little plain and old fashioned. 

Then he realized the guy was holding what looked like one of those old bug sprayers, the kind that looked like a handheld bike pump. “Uhhh. Whatcha doin’ there mate?” 

The stranger leveled a flat and unimpressed drawn-on glare at him. “Spraying pests,” he said with his real actual mouth and not his fake mask one, which Jack was grateful for. “Are you gonna apologize for nearly steam rolling me, or am I gonna have to spray you for being a pest?” 

Honestly Jack thought that was a bit rude but to be fair, he did actually almost run into him, so… “Sorry, sorry,” he said with a sheepish smile and raised hands. “I wasn’t looking where I was going, that’s my bad.” 

The man raised a brow again, and god that was weird. “Yeah, I noticed. Speaking of, where  _ are _ you going, anyway?” Then he paused, and the dot-eyes blinked, turning into little flat lines for an instant. “Oh, right, lemme introduce myself, my name’s Cryotic. I’m the groundskeeper, kinda.” He raised the sprayer and walked over to a bush, and now that he was looking Jack could see-

Holy fucking shit, those were fairies. Little actual fairies, looking like tiny women with tiny ragged white dresses or something, and glimmering wings. Jack took a step closer right before Cryotic blasted one of them square in the face, and she went down. “Woah, what the hell?!” Jack cried as he rushed over to the poor little thing, lying in the dirt but still moving around. Cryotic just moved on to another, and Jack picked the little dear up and cradled her in his hands as he stared up at Cryotic with a glare. “The hell do you think you’re doi-” Jack cut himself off with a yelp as the fairy bit him right in the web between his middle and index finger, and he dropped her. 

Cryotic walked over to him. “Spraying pests,” he said as he blasted the fairy Jack had dropped once again, and even though she bit him Jack still didn’t wanna watch her die so he looked away. 

“She bit me!” Jack said indignantly. “The hell kind of fairy  _ bites _ people?!”

The look Cryotic gave him was even more unimpressed than the last. “Dude, aren’t you Irish? What kind of fairy is  _ good _ for you?” 

Jack sputtered, holding his hand close like he’d been stabbed and not nibbled by something smaller than his fist. “The ones that look like fookin’ Tinkerbell! How the hell was I supposed to know she’d BITE me?!” 

Cryotic lowered his sprayer and sighed. “Did you think I was spraying them because they were nice and sweet and helpful and I was just an evil man who wanted to ruin good things? I’m the groundskeeper and I’m keeping the grounds. When someone tells you they spray pests, and then they spray something? Safe to assume that thing is a pest.” Cryotic lifted the sprayer and let it rest upon his shoulder like a soldier cockily holding a gun. “So, where are you going?”

Happy to take advantage of the change in subject, Jack blurted out “I need to get to the center of the labyrinth. The doors are so bloody big, I couldn’t open them. I thought maybe there was another way in?” 

This time Cryotic’s sigh was audibly annoyed. “Man you are not making this easy,” he mumbled, before he casually tossed the sprayer behind him. “Alright, well,” he said grumpily, “I’m technically in charge of  _ all _ of the grounds, including the inside of the labyrinth, so if you’re going in there I gotta come with you so you don’t fuck something up again.”

When he tried to retort, Cryotic just raised a hand and glared at him. “Nope, no, shut up, and follow me. I’ll open the doors, and then you’re going to go where you need to, and I’ll follow and do my best to keep you from blundering dick first into something you obviously shouldn’t be messing with.”

As Cryotic walked past him, Jack turned and followed him. “My name’s Jack, not that you asked,” he said sharply. “And I’d love to see you open those fookin’ doors, they’re bigger than my damn house.” 

Cryotic didn’t even look over his shoulder at him when he answered. “I know who you are, dude, everyone does. Well, everyone important, anyways. Plenty of people around here that don’t care about the important stuff, that are just going about their own business and trust us to keep the place running for them.”

That was one hell of a loaded sentence, but Jack didn’t have time to unpack most of it. “Dude, this entire labyrinth wasn’t here like an hour ago, what are you talking about?” 

The doors were in sight now, and Cryotic snorted. This time he actually looked back to stare Jack in the eyes. “Yeah, but when it was made it was made with a history, and a past. This place has been around for generations. Just wasn’t  _ here _ yet.” Before Jack could even begin to unpack that, Cryotic came to a stop in front of those massive doors. “Not that I expect you to be able to make sense of that, considering you couldn’t even open the fucking door.”

At his wit’s end and about to snap, Jack barely held his tongue as he watched Cryotic walk up to the door. He was dying to see Cryotic fail, or at least show him how one normal person could ever hope to open those massive stone-

Cryotic stepped right up to the door, not even coming up to a tenth of its size despite being nearly six feet tall, and rapped against it with the back of his knuckles. “Hey, open up will you?” 

When the titanic doors shuddered, bits of stone and dust crumbling and flaking down to the ground as they slowly swung inwards and opened, Jack wanted to cry. 

The two of them had been walking down an endless, infinite hallway with no turns or doors in sight for at least two hours before Jack finally broke down. “It doesn’t end,” he muttered to the floor as he stood stock still. His legs ached, he and Cryotic had been just  _ walking _ for HOURS and at first the silence had been Jack’s embarrassment but after a while it was stubbornness, just waiting for Cryotic to speak up first, but it had been hours of nothing but the same endless hallway and he couldn’t do it anymore. “It just doesn’t fookin’ END!” Jack cried, his head craned up towards the now completely green sky, arms stretched upwards as if to plead for god’s help. 

His hands fell to his sides, and Jack all but collapsed against the wall. “God,” he said as he pressed his palms against his face and mumbled through them. “I’m never getting out of here.” He dragged his hands down his face and groaned, before casting a glare at Cryotic. “How the hell am I supposed to reach the palace at the center when this entire fucking maze has turned into an infinite hallway, with no turns or openings to be seen?!” 

“Dude, there’s been doors  _ everywhere. _ You’ve walked past like, twelve of them in the last hour? You seriously didn’t see them?” Cryotic looked genuinely confused, and it was only now that Jack understood how you could truly be driven to drink. 

“Bullshit,” Jack spat. “Fookin’ BULLSHIT there’s doors! Where?! Show me a door, Cryotic, because I cannot FUCKING see one!” 

Now Cryotic looked concerned. “Damn, you really haven’t noticed them have you? Fuck, you need more help than I thought, I just thought you were fuckin’ around for shits and giggles but you,  _ really _ have no idea do you?” He sighed, and pointed at the wall across from Jack which just so happened to be the exterior wall of the labyrinth. “Just walk through there, dude,” Cryotic said as Jack stared blankly at the flat, featureless stretch of worn brick and stone. 

“Cryotic,” Jack said with exasperation not so much boiling through him as bubbling with the sort of energy typically exhibited by lethargic snails being given a parking ticket, “that is a wall.”

Cryotic walked over, grabbed Jack by the arm, and tugged him towards the wall. “Yeah but it’s also a goddamn archway,” he said as Jack followed. Cryotic pushed him in front, and Jack resigned himself to being slammed into a wall and prayed for a quick death when he stumbled forwards and through the archway that he would swear to any god one could name wasn’t fucking there. 

Jack looked to his left, and then to his right, and saw that the wall just kinda stopped, and behind him was the rest of it which he’d seen from his leaning spot. Past those points was what looked to be a genuine labyrinth, and he just tried not to cry as Cryotic followed him, then passed him, and had to tug him out of the befuckened wall that added one more straw to the long broken camel’s back that was Jack’s sanity. 

“Are you going to keep moving, or what?” Cryotic asked him with yet another quirked line of a brow. Jack simply stared at him for a few moments before sighing. 

“Fookin’, fine, yeah, let’s keep going.” he mumbled. At least they were in the labyrinth proper, now, and not whatever the fresh hell that hallway had been. The walls were shorter on the inside than the outside had been, but Jack got the distinct impression that this place didn’t exactly follow the rules of reality. They were still too tall to climb over, though, and they were of a different color; sandier, than the baked orange of the exterior. There were pillars and clearings, stairs and terraces, the labyrinth truly lived up to its name in terms of confusion. 

Jack stopped in the middle of two pillars, each topped with a sphere of stone, and knelt down. He pulled a sharpie out of his jeans pocket and drew an arrow on a tile, to try and help him keep his bearings. When he stood back up, Cryotic was leaning against one of the pillars and looking at him. “What?” Jack asked sharply. 

“Nothing,” Cryotic said in a strange tone of voice as he quickly looked away. That mask covered his cheeks and nose, but Jack could swear he could see a hint of a blush from what little of the man’s mouth he could see. “Nothing at all,” he said, and yeah Jack could definitely see a hint of pink. 

Jack looked at his sharpie, and then at the lines of Cryotic’s mask. “Did you…. Want me to add something? To your mask?” 

Cryotic reacted as if Jack had shocked him with a static charge bad enough to jump start a car. “No! Why would I- Shut up!” This time it was Jack’s turn to raise a brow. 

“Dude, it’s fine, just tell me what you’d like and I’d be happy to-” Jack had raised his marker, but Cryotic smacked his hand away so hard he almost lost the marker. 

“If you so much as  _ touch _ my face with that thing, I swear I will drop you face first in an oubliette and leave you there to  _ rot. _ Understand?” Jack wished he could take the threat seriously, he really did, but Cryotic’s mask had little angry eyebrows drawn on over the dots of his eyes and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

“The fook is an oubliette?” Jack asked as he desperately tried to keep a smile off his face. 

“It’s a dungeon where the only opening is in the ceiling, high off the floor. You drop someone in and you forget about them, forever. They’re all over the damn place around here.” Cryotic at least didn’t have the angry eyebrow lines anymore, so it was easier for Jack to act like he wasn’t suddenly very genuinely unnerved. 

Their little argument had taken them a few steps away, so Jack turned back as he stuffed his sharpie back in his pocket. “I’ll keep that in min-” he stopped short as he looked down at the arrow he’d just drawn, which was now pointing in a completely different direction. “...... It changed.”

Cryotic walked up and made a little hmph. “Yeah, shit does that around here.” They stood in silence for a few moments, staring at the tile. “Sorry for threatening to drop you in a hole to die, by the way. Might’ve overreacted a bit. S’just, y’know, didn’t have a face until my boyfriend gave me this and drew this one for me. If you fuck it up I’ll be pissed.”

Too busy trying not to cry, Jack just shrugged. “Yeah, sure, whatever. You’re forgiven.” He dragged his hand down his face again, then looked up at the sky. “How much longer do you think we have until the sun sets? Couple hours?”

“Not sure, but it’s more than a couple I’d say. Honestly, we should probably go find my boyfriend,” Cryotic said, “he’s way better at telling time and navigating this place than I am. There’s a reason he’s the Groundskeeper.” 

Jack took a step, and stopped. “Wait,” he said as he turned to face Cryotic, “I thought you were the Groundskeeper!” 

Cryotic shook his head. “Nah, I’m just the groundskeeper.  _ Inverse _ is the Groundskeeper. I just do a lot of the work for him when I can.”

The amount of energy it took Jack not to grab Cryotic and shake him apart was enough to power a city block for three and a half weeks. “We’re saying. The same. Word.” 

“See, this is what I’m talking about, you need WAY more help than I can give,” Cryotic said as he clapped his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Hold on, we can use this door to get to him,” and Jack spun around to face where Cryotic was pointing and saw a door in a wall that had been a clearing the last time Jack had looked. It was a simple wooden door with a brass handle on the right side. 

When Cryotic opened the door, though, about sixteen different mops and brooms fell out of it. “Damn it,” Cryotic said as he kicked them out of the way and closed the door. “Could’ve sworn this was a left handed doorknob,” he mumbled as he yanked the knob out of the door and jammed it into the left side. “Guess it belonged on the right side,” he said as he opened it again. This time it opened to what almost looked like a giant chessboard, but as Jack approached Cryotic stopped him with his arm. “No, hold on, I did it wrong,” he said.

“What?” Jack asked as Cryotic closed the door again. 

“It usually means backwards, but sometimes it means upside down,” Cryotic said unhelpfully. Then he pulled the entire door off the wall like it was a cheap plank of wood leaning against it, and of course the wall was solid brick underneath it. He flipped the door upside down like one of those cardboard arrows people turned every which way on the street corner and placed it against the wall again and opened it, revealing a garden. “Alright if he isn’t in here either then we’re fucked either way so we’ll run into him eventually,” he said as he walked through the door. Jack had little choice but to follow him, and when he did and turned back to close the door he found there was no wall or door to be seen. Just a creepy pillar with stone hands dotted all around it, each one pointing in a different direction. 

Cryotic was suddenly right next to him, and he leaned against Jack as he tapped the pillar. “Hey, can any of you point me towards Inverse by any chance?” The hands shifted, every one of them pointing in the same direction for a moment before returning to their original positions. “Thanks!” Cryotic said with a wave as he pulled Jack towards the hedge walls they’d been directed towards. 

Of course there was a hedge maze, its entrance visible once Jack and Cryotic were close enough, but luckily for the both of them there was a man holding pruning shears tending to the arch of greenery that served as the front gate. “Hi sweetie!” Cryotic called, and the man paused and turned to face them. 

Like Cryotic, the man looked normal enough; his clothes were more official looking than Cryotic’s, but still simple, and he had a normal face and body. In fact, Jack thought nothing was out of the ordinary until the guy put the shears down on a pedestal Jack hadn’t noticed and he saw the guy’s hands; his thumbs were on the opposite side of his hands that they were supposed to be. “Oh, hello love,” the man Jack assumed was called Inverse said. His voice was sharp but not high, and now that Jack was getting a better look at his face he could see that the man’s eyes were off too; he had bright little green dots of color at the center, and pitch black irises. “Ah, you have Jack with you!” Inverse clapped his hands together with a smile, and Jack tried to ignore how fucking offputting his hands were.

“How much longer until the sun sets?” Jack asked abruptly. He was desperately trying to ignore Inverse’s hands, god that was so fucking upsetting to see-

“Well, we have about four hours, but I’m assuming you’re asking because you want to know how much time you have left?” Jack nodded only once Cryotic jabbed him in the side with an elbow after he stared at Inverse blankly for ten seconds. “Mm, yes, then I should also tell you that the sun will rise only three hours after it sets.”

“What?!” Jack screamed. “That’s- That isn’t fair!” 

Inverse only frowned. “Nobody ever said this would be  _ fair. _ We will have to find somewhere to camp as soon as possible, so we can sleep. You will want to be well rested for the final stretch of your journey.” 

That, at least, was good news to Jack, who sighed with relief. “So we’re close? To the palace?” 

Cryotic was the one who sighed this time, and it wasn’t with relief. “You see what I’ve been working with, Inverse?” he asked exasperatedly. Inverse grimaced. 

“Yes, my word, he really has no idea does he?” Inverse looked Jack in the face and somehow ignored the ungodly scowl he was wearing. “This place, it changes. I’m sure you’ve seen that already, but you seem not to understand the full extent of it. How close we are will not change, but it also does not matter, when the only paths available to us may very well lead us further away at any time.” Inverse picked his shears back up and slid one of the handles through a loop on his waist that Jack hadn’t noticed. “Luckily, areas do not blend together. The hedge maze will shift around, but you will never find yourself suddenly out of the hedge maze. You must find an exit.”

Then he stepped up next to Cryotic and gestured towards the entrance to the hedge maze itself. “We will follow, and do our best to guide you when you need it. For now, you should look inside the hedges for the Baron; he will grant us a place to rest.” 

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and bottled up yet another extremely bitter sigh. “Yeah, alright,” he said. “Any tips on  _ finding _ this baron?” He looked at Inverse in time to see him shake his head, and let that sigh out after all. “Cool.”

The three of them had taken less than twenty steps into the hedge maze when there was a loud, booming explosion quickly followed by the hedge wall just behind them being smashed apart by what Jack assumed in a blind panic to be a cannonball. “Halt, vile trespassers! Not one of those loyal to the Duchess’ Court will EVER be tolerated in my lands!” 

Peeking out from under the marble bench he’d managed to duck under, Jack felt his jaw drop when he caught sight of who, or rather what, was manning the ornate cannon that had fired on them; it was a ferret, dressed in a royal looking cape and sporting a tiny crown, with a lighting stick grasped firmly in its paw. Before he could even open his mouth, however, Inverse climbed out of the tall stone vase he’d somehow hidden himself in and spoke up. “Hello, Baron! We actually come seeking asylum and refuge, as we are in need of rest and food.”

Apparently the cannon didn’t need to be reloaded, since the lighting stick was jammed into the back of it and a second shot rang out, smashing the tall vase behind Inverse into pieces while the man himself didn’t even flinch. “You  _ dare _ to brazenly admit to coveting my precious trove of ham?! Have you no SHAME?!”

Cryotic poked his head out from around a hedge wall’s corner. “Not really!”

The ferret lowered his fuzzy arm. “Oh, alright then.” The ferret ignored the loud slap of Jack’s palm slamming into his face in exasperation. “I’m currently at war with the Duchess, so I cannot promise you safety. But shelter and food, those are promises I can keep!” The Baron capped his lighting stick and revealed that it was, in fact, a scepter, and he hopped down off the cannon’s platform. He walked on two feet as he gestured for the three strangers in his land to follow him. “Come, you can stay at my encampment on the front lines!”

They were silent as they followed the Baron’s confident strides through the twisting, surreal paths of the hedge maze. Well, Jack and his companions were silent; the Baron seemed incapable of shutting up for any period of time longer than about ten seconds. “The war effort goes well! The Duchess suffered a tremendous defeat at my hands just today, as I single handedly delivered a shipment of her favorite food right to her front steps! Oh, she was  _ furious! _ I admit, it was cruel, and I feel no small amount of shame for laughing in her face as she yelled at me in between bites of cake, but she forced my paw!” The Baron gave them a sidelong glance, almost conspiratorially. “Can you believe that she actually had my boathouse  _ renovated? _ Free of charge! I mean, honestly, that was just uncalled for.”

Ten minutes and several more confusing stories of friendly acts being treated as vicious affronts later, they finally arrived at the encampment the Baron had promised them. It was literally just one huge tent that looked more like a circus stall than a camping spot, and after they were ushered inside Jack was greeted with the sheer luxury that was a large pile of blankets and pillows. It took a bit of work to divide the pile into two little nests, one for Jack and one for the weird creepy boyfriends, but soon enough they were all situated comfortably. When the Baron came back into the tent after leaving them to get settled, he was hauling a silver serving platter bigger than he was behind him like a sled, upon which was a veritable mountain of sliced ham. 

It was all ice cold and unpleasantly slimy, but Jack was starving and as far as he could tell Cryotic and Inverse genuinely enjoyed it. After they were done eating, the Baron left them alone, and Jack had nothing to do but talk to his friends. 

“So, are the Duchess and the Baron enemies, or friends?” he asked. He honestly still couldn’t figure it out. The looks he received, though, told him that he was the only one that was struggling with it. 

“They are at war, Jack,” Inverse said calmly, with the tone of voice one would use to explain to a small child that the moon was not made of cheese. “They are enemies.” 

“Well, yeah,” Jack said with a frown, “but all their interactions, they’re things friends would do? Like, they seem to want each other to be happy and doing well, and they always act in ways that benefit the other.”

Cryotic nodded. “Yeah, they’re  _ very _ bitter enemies, but it’s not our place to judge.”

This was going nowhere, Jack could just  _ tell. _ “Sure. Whatever. How are we supposed to fall asleep, by the way? I feel wired, not sleepy.” 

Inverse chuckled. “We just ate dinner, we’ll be asleep in no time. That’s how it works!” As much as Jack wanted to argue about that, he suddenly felt significantly more relaxed and tired than he just had been. In fact, he was soon struggling to keep his eyes open. He’d have thought he was drugged under normal circumstances, but…… Well. These were not normal circumstances. 

Whether he dreamed or simply slept in a void of his own, Jack did not know. He woke up what felt like mere moments after he’d rested his head back in his nest of blankets, and he struggled to sit up. Mostly because he was stiff as hell from sleeping on a pile of blankets instead of a bed, partly because the divot his body made in said pile was hard to get out of. 

“Oi, wake up you two!” Jack yelled. Cryotic and Inverse were still asleep and piled on top of each other in a tangle of limbs and homosexuality. Inverse woke up immediately, his eyes snapping open as he fixed Jack with a glare strong enough to actually make him take a step back. 

“If you wake him up early, and he didn’t get enough rest,” Inverse said in a calm, monotone voice quite unlike the chipper and lilting tones Jack had heard from him so far, “I will cut off the tips of your fingers with my gardening shears and replace them with your  _ teeth. _ You understand?” 

Before Jack could piss his pants in response to that, Cryotic’s hand was suddenly laying against Inverse’s face. “Mmm, no threatening our friend with violence,” Cryotic mumbled sleepily as he pushed himself up with his other hand. “S’rude, y’know.” Even without real eyes, Cryotic still gazed into Inverse’s creepy eyes for a solid thirty seconds of tender silence. Jack was content to leave them to it for a bit, but-

“PERIMETER BREACH!” the Baron suddenly screamed from outside. “ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS, PROTECT THE FRONT LINE!” Jack ran outside, closely followed by Inverse and Cryotic, only to see that the Baron was standing on a little box he’d grabbed from somewhere and was leveling his scepter at-

“Is that a possum?” Jack blurted out, but luckily for him everyone ignored him. 

“Good morning, Barothy,” said the possum Jack couldn’t stop himself from staring at. It was wearing a crown of its own, and it had a sparkling diamond collar around its neck as well as several cute, tiny rings on its feets. 

“How?! How did my vast defense fail to prevent you from invading my encampment?!” The Baron waved his scepter angrily at the possum as he yelled. Honestly the whole scene was just fucking adorable, but Inverse and Cryotic seemed to be taking it seriously so Jack wasn’t sure if he should be worried or not. 

“Hah! The Duchess of Junk and her royal trash court cannot be stopped by such paltry measures!” the possum exclaimed gleefully. She was standing on her hind legs just like the Baron, although she didn’t have a scepter. It was only then, at that very moment, that she finally saw Jack and his friends. “Oh shit, you have company?! Damn, I’m sorry man,” she said with a frown. 

The Baron’s posture changed immediately, and his scepter went from being waved like a weapon to being used like a pointer. “Oh, no it’s fine, don’t worry,” the Baron said, “seriously I’ll fight you if you so much as dare to feel bad and you KNOW I mean it.” He coughed awkwardly into his free paw. “Uh, anyways…..” He brandished his scepter again, pointing at the Duchess accusingly. “I demand answers, fiend! How did you breach my defenses?! I’m almost certain I put some of those up yesterday!” 

“Because your defenses suck and are stinky! And not in the cool way!” The Duchess shouted. “No but you actually deadass forgot, I can’t believe you didn’t hear me laughing. Seriously though, is everything okay?” 

It was surreal to see a ferret sigh with dejection. “If I’m being honest, things haven’t been super great lately. I was actually gonna ask if we could put the war on hold for a bit, it’s the best thing I’ve got going for me right now but I just, I really gotta deal with some stuff y’know? Would that be okay?”

If Jack had thought a ferret sighing dejectedly was weird, it was far weirder to see a possum look put-out with worry. “Dude, of course it’s okay! Why didn’t you say something sooner?” The Baron just gave her a Look and she sighed. “Yeah I know, pot meet kettle. Fucker. Look, you just take all the time you need, okay?”

“Okay.” The Baron looked at Jack, then, and then looked back at the Duchess. “You think you could show these cunks out of the maze?” Jack had no idea what a cunk was but he knew he didn’t like it. 

“Yeah, sure, follow me losers,” the possum said as she turned around and left, barely even waiting to see if Jack and his friends were following. Their journey passed in silence, at least until the exit out of the maze was in view. Then, Inverse walked forwards and leaned down to stage-whisper into the Duchess’ ear. 

“His ham was cold,” was all he said, and Jack didn’t have to look at Cryotic’s face to know that he’d just witnessed a catastrophic betrayal, the likes of which would turn the tides of war irrevocably. 

Jack would be haunted until the day he died by the knowledge of what it sounded like when a possum cackled maniacally. 

The instant Jack stepped over the threshold of the hedge archway and out of the maze, he was blinded by light. Recoiling backwards didn’t save him, because the hedge maze was already gone and he also just bumped into Inverse. “Fook!” Jack yelled as he rubbed at his eyes. “Fookin hell, that’s SO BRIGHT!” It took his eyes over a minute to adjust to the dazzling intensity of the light that surrounded them, and when he could finally see again he still had to squint no matter where he looked. 

Everything around him, from the walls of the town he could barely make out to the buildings and their roofs, to the road beneath his feet, was made of crystals and jewels. He would have called what he stood on cobblestone if it wasn’t made of what looked to be sapphires and amethysts. 

Inverse didn’t seem to care in the slightest, although funnily enough Cryotic was also shielding his false eyes with his hand. “I didn’t have to do this back in the hedges, but here……” Inverse seemed troubled, but not by the light. “I’m the Groundskeeper, so I have right of passage and so does anyone I vouch for. Turn that down and let us through.” 

At first Jack had no fucking idea who or what Inverse was talking to, but then the light reflecting off of every surface dimmed down to a normal shine and he was finally able to see that there was a man standing in front of them, in the center of the town square they found themselves in. Like the buildings and walls and ground beneath them, the man was made of precious stones and even metals. He had sapphires for eyes, and fine threads of silver for hair. His skin was the bright white of polished marble, and his clothes appeared to be woven from gold leaf. When he opened his mouth to speak, Jack saw that his teeth were made of diamond. “I’d say it was nice to see you again, Inverse, but it’s not and it never has been.” His voice was as beautiful as the rest of him, like the sound made by a crystal glass filled with water when rung just right. But while the sound was beautiful, his tone of voice was dripping with disdain and disgust in equal measure. 

“Just let us through, Jules,” Inverse said with his mouth pursed tight and his brows furrowed in irritation. “We all know you have to.”

Jules, which Jack thought was a little on the nose for a name but then again Inverse was named Inverse so he guessed the time to poke at the naming conventions had long since passed, simply scoffed. “Yeah, but I don’t have to make it  _ easy _ for you now do I?” 

“Look,” Jack said sharply, “I need to get to the palace and if you have to let us through anyways then why not make it quick? We obviously don’t wanna be here any longer than you do.”

Cryotic was the one to face-palm this time, and even Inverse looked exasperated. Jules, on the other hand, looked like Jack had just taken a shit on his porch in full view of him. “Excuse you?” Jules said so sharply Jack worried for a second that he was actually going to start bleeding. “My city is  _ resplendent, _ and you should be grateful to see even an INCH of it. If it wasn’t for Inverse you’d be mopping up the puddle that used to be your eyeballs right about now. I’d slap you for your insolence if that didn’t mean touching your disgusting face,” he bit out. 

Jack opened his mouth to bite right back, but Cryotic darted towards him and slapped a hand over Jack’s mouth before he could say anything. “We apologize for Jack,” Cryotic said hastily. “And we don’t share his views. The fact remains, though, that we have to hurry.” He tilted his head up, and so did Jack; the sky was green, but there were wisps of purple gathering around the moon that hung in place. The sun wasn’t yet touching it, but the sky was already darkening in preparation for the inevitable eclipse. 

Jules sighed. “Fine,” he said angrily, “you can go on through, and I’ll even pull the exit up for you. But if you run through my streets I swear to any force you’d care to name that I will  _ destroy _ your reputation.” 

So, so very much of Jack wanted to run just to spite the guy, but Cryotic had a death grip on his arm and wasn’t letting him go. “Of course,” Cryotic said without moving his hand off Jack’s mouth. “We’ll be on our way now, and thank you for your generosity.” That seemed to appease Jules the tiniest bit, at least.

Inverse led Jack and Cryotic through the streets of the jeweled city in tense silence, their pace casual despite the steadily darkening sky. The exit out of the city was already in view at the end of the main road, which was nice. Less nice was what awaited them on the other side of that gleaming glass door; shattered stones crunched beneath Jack’s shoes as he walked onto the grounds of the Obsidian Palace, a desolate place littered with razor sharp stone and all but dripping with malice. 

Cryotic let him go, finally, but when Jack stepped forwards his friends didn’t follow him. “Guys?” he asked as he turned around. Behind him was the gateway to the palace, a large and intricately carved slab of obsidian carved into the shape of a door. And in front of him were his friends, standing a foot away and looking terribly sad. “What’s wrong?”

Inverse leaned into Cryotic, who leaned into him in return. It was Cryotic who spoke. “We, uh. We can’t go with you.” Cryotic bit his lip, his dot-eyes flicking back and forth as he looked everywhere except at Jack. “Also, uh. Didn’t tell you this before-hand, but. If you fail, you won’t be able to see us again. Ever. Cause if you fail, you won’t be allowed to leave the palace, and…. We can’t go in there.”

Jack swallowed around a knot in his throat the size of a baseball. “W-why not?” He’d really only just met these two, and their relationship wasn’t exactly sunshine and roses, but….. They had helped him, they had stood by him, and while they were kind of abrasive and dismissive Jack got the distinct impression that they truly, deeply  _ cared _ about him. 

Cryotic was fidgeting with Inverse’s backwards hands that Jack no longer found creepy in the slightest. “Well, y’know, it’s. For you. And for Dark. The palace, it’s…. Closer, I guess, to where you come from? Or something?” 

Inverse cleared his throat, and he was good at acting chipper but Jack knew now it was an act and right now it was one he was failing. “To put it as simply as possible, and keep in mind this isn’t literal it’s just the easiest metaphor to use for this….. You’re real, and Dark is real, and the palace is real, but we’re…… not. We can’t go inside for the same reason Dark is the only one in this entire world that could have ever gone to meet you in yours.” He shrugged. “We just  _ can’t. _ But if it makes you feel better, if you don’t fail? You’ll have the option to come back someday, and you’ll be able to see us all you like.”

Before Jack could even respond, Cryotic peeled away from Inverse’s side and cleared his throat. “Hey, so, just in case you fuck it up and we never get to see you again? I wanted you to see this, at least once.” Then he reached up, and he did something Jack didn’t know was even possible and he pulled his mask away from his face.

When he lowered it, Jack was only just able to keep in his scream. Cryotic had told him that before Inverse gave him the mask he didn’t have a face, and as Jack stared through the gaping hole that spanned from just above Cryotic’s nose to his hairline and into his empty skull, he realized that Cryotic had  _ meant it. _

“I’m gonna see you again,” Jack said quietly. “I promise.” 

Usually when Cryotic smiled the corners of his lips dipped up under his mask, but now that he wasn’t wearing it Jack was able to see that he had dimples when he smiled. “See you soon, then,” he said. 

Jack turned around and walked up to the door, and swallowed his nerves once again. When he grabbed the handle and pulled, the door swung open with ease, and it took every scrap of strength Jack had left in him not to look back as he stepped through.

He had a promise to keep. 

It felt strange to be alone, now. After everything that had happened, everything he’d seen in this awful wonderful world that couldn’t be real and continued to exist regardless, it was the loneliness and the quiet that really got to him. That sobering realization was enough to keep Jack from noticing his surroundings for a scant few moments, but once he did he honestly kind of wished he could go back to that. 

“Oh what in the  _ fook,” _ Jack muttered. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected the inside of the obsidian palace to look like, but he’d at least expected it to look like the inside of a building! Instead, Jack was standing on a landing at the top of a staircase that descended into an archway, that appeared to be situated on the wall of another room, but which also had another staircase leading into it elsewhere at an opposing angle. To call it M.C. Escher-esque would honestly be underselling it, because the second Jack stepped onto the first set of stairs he saw six other copies of himself step onto six random staircases that ran through this weird, infinite chamber of stairs and walls and arches. 

Jack tried to go back to the door but when he turned around everything behind him had changed. Turning back again had him a foot away from a dead end that hadn’t been there, and Jack just thanked any force that would listen that nothing changed when he  _ blinked. _

“Message received,” he spat out through clenched teeth. “ _ Commit yourself or fail. _ Not exactly being subtle, are you?” he half yelled at the blackness he could spot between the gaps between winding, twisting stairs. He turned around again, and then once more, so that he could descend down the stairs without the dead-end. Like hell he was going to walk  _ up _ an infinite, mind melting series of stairs. 

It was sooner rather than later that Jack came to another landing, but honestly he was just grateful that it had appeared in his line of vision and showed up normally. Around here, things following the laws of physics and reason wasn’t something you could take for granted. There were two staircases branching off from the landing that Jack was equally grateful were still there where he’d seen them, and he chose the left one because it went down. Unfortunately, as he discovered once he started walking down it, it was curving ever so slightly backwards while retaining its gravity so he couldn’t see ahead too far. Thanks to that, it came as a surprise when he spotted a door at the end of the stairs, although he still had a few minutes of walking to prepare himself. 

The door in question was identical to the front door of the palace, except it was a glimmering red. With any luck, it went to the ruby tower the roses were in; the sun must have already touched the moon by now, and Jack honestly had no idea how much time he had left. 

His outstretched fingers brushed against the red handle of the ruby door, and everything fell apart. 

The stairs crumbled under his feet, the door shattered into pieces, and as Jack turned and tumbled through the air trying not to scream, the endless twisting stairs and walls and arches all dissolved into nothing. Jack felt himself slow in the air just as he was about to start screaming, and then he felt his shoes touch down on something solid in this endless black expanse. He was standing, panting from the panic and trying not to completely lose it. 

“Time’s up, darling,” Jack heard Dark say from somewhere, and everywhere, and nowhere. Jack just closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them to see Dark standing before him with that damned smirk and black eyes. In his right hand were two glass spheres, one silver and one yellow, and he effortlessly turned and tumbled them around and over each other in his hand. Then, with a simple press of his nimble fingers, they slid into each other and became a single orb of swirling gold and silver. “The sun has swallowed the moon, and all the wolf has left to howl his praises to….. Is you.”

Even though Dark didn’t have an iris or pupil, Jack knew he was looking right at him. “So, this is the last time I’ll ask this, and the last chance you’ll have to answer; will you give me back my roses, or will you stay here by my side where you belong?” 

Dark’s appearance had not changed, and Jack was struck with a realization; there was only one rose, and Dark hadn’t given it to him. And just like that, things started to click into place: if there was any one theme running through all the things he’d experienced in this place, it was that he didn’t understand this world and that his assumptions otherwise only ever complicated things. By trying to operate on the logic he’d grown up with, he only ever threw this place into disarray when it was always so damnedly  _ simple. _

“You never gave me any roses,” Jack said softly, as everything slammed into place in his mind. “But I still had something to return to you. They just weren’t  _ roses. _ ” He saw Dark smile, not smirk, and everything was so clear now. “I could have left at any point, couldn’t I?” 

The smirk returned. “You could have, before you agreed to return my gifts. You only had to tell me, when I asked for them back, that you didn’t have to. And I would have let you.” 

“But I didn’t,” Jack said. 

“But you didn’t,” Dark responded with a soft little smile. “You knew the whole time, Jack, just like you know right now. You just didn’t  _ understand. _ ”

Jack smiled, too, because he  _ did _ know, and he finally understood. “I said yes, but you never took it. I offered my throat but you didn’t claim it. And the gifts you gave me, I hadn’t claimed them until I started playing this little game of yours.”

Dark just looked at him, because of course he knew all these things already, but Jack was explaining them to himself as he worked through them and Dark knew that too. 

“You gave me your mouth, and your teeth, and your jaws, and your hunger. And I have to give them back.” Jack looked up with shock in his face, to see Dark smiling wide at him. Ah, that was it, then. Jack felt a smile grace his features, and he laughed. “God, nothing is ever going to be easy with you, is it?” 

Then Jack did the thing that would return him to his world, the small simple action that was all he’d ever had to do; he surged forwards, grabbed Dark’s head in his hands, and kissed him. Dark’s lips parted immediately and Jack wasted no time in returning the favor, licking at Dark’s lips before lapping at his teeth and then pulling back with a smirk. He didn’t let go of Dark’s jaw. 

“When you’re ready, my darling,” Dark said with half lidded eyes and arousal heavy in his voice, “simply soak my thorns in your blood, and you will be brought here to stay.” 

“What?” Jack asked, but when he blinked Dark was gone, and the void was gone, and the only thing in front of him was Ryan’s mirror. 

He blinked several more times just to make sure this was real before he turned and stumbled back towards the couch. Jack fell into the cushions bonelessly, the adrenaline and wonder and fear that had filled him for the past day and a half leaving him all at once. 

It took him longer than he’d ever admit to notice the crystalline vase on the coffee table, inside of which was a single, impossibly red, needle-thorned rose. There was no water in the vase, but Jack knew innately that the rose didn’t need it. 

This was not a love that would die.

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fucking thing exists because of a weird song by Meat Loaf where the first fifty seconds are a spoken conversation, and the actual song doesn't matter to me because that conversation killed me. And then I had to write this.


End file.
